It has been known to couple a combination weigher such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,553,616 with a packing machine such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,288,965 for successively packing batches of weighed product sequentially into bags. More specifically, as described in the above U.S. patents, the combination weigher serves to combine weights of product fed to a plurality of weighing units in predetermined fashion and select from the resultant combinations a combination the sum of which satisfies a predetermined condition and to deliver the batch of product constituting the selected combination, and the packing machine serves to form a bag from a sheet of material and to pack the delivered batch of product in the bag. Such weighing and packing operations are automatically repeated.
It has been a general practice to design and manufacture such combination weigher and packing machine independently in different plants or by different manufacturers and to provide them with separate operation and display devices, respectively. The operation and display device as referred to in this specification means a device for providing the weigher and packing machine such operation parameters as target weight, allowable deviation, bag length, rate of delivery and likes, and displaying actual operation data such as combined weight, actual speed of operation and the like, as well as other operation parameters.
In such a combination weigher and an associated packing machine, it is troublesome for a single operator to set the operation parameters and monitor the state of operation with separate operation and display devices which are often located in different positions.